Language Creations

Issac Newton tried to start his own language, and other constructed languages, like Esperanto, have been created in hopes of creating a perfect language, but neither this nor Issac’s attempt were very successful.

Why? Read below.

The attempt by Newton was in reaction to the imperfect languages all around him, much in the same way as the Esperanto language. For Newton, during his years at university, it made sense to make different objects of the same type start with the same letter.

“Let the names of the same sorte of things begin with the same letter: as of instruments with s; Beasts with t; The soules passions with,” said Newton.

Unlike Polish Ophthalmologist Ludwig Lazarus ‘L.L.’ Zamenhof’s Esperanto, which was made an international auxiliary language, Newton wanted his ‘perfect’ language to be for all.

Besides the differences in structure, the largest difference between Newton and Zamenhof’s languages was that Newton abandoned his language idea after he realized it would be a lifetime of work with little chance at success.

Zamenhof did maintain his disposition of his language creation and now has Esperanto has the most widely used international auxiliary language with about 1,000 native speakers and 100,000 who actively use it.

The fact that there are any ‘native’ speakers at all of a language that has no natural borders is nothing short of remarkable, and helps Esperanto stand out as one of the foremost constructed languages in the world today.